US Seizes $52M in Crypto From Chinese Scam Marketplace Xinbi

American law enforcement has restrained close to $52 million in cryptocurrency connected to fraud from a single day's operation and took control of the Telegram channels belonging to Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language illicit bazaar.

Elliptic stated its years-long monitoring of Xinbi's wallet addresses enabled the US Secret Service to take action. Treasury sanctions were imposed on the same day.

Inside the $24 Billion Xinbi Guarantee Economy

Xinbi is a marketplace operating in Chinese on Telegram that provides services to operators of scam centers. Sellers promote custom fraudulent websites, money laundering and recruitment for compounds located in Southeast Asia.

Elliptic exposed the activity in May 2025. The company now records at least $24 billion in transactions since 2022, putting it behind only Huione Guarantee, which processed $31 billion prior to its closure in 2025.

A related payment arm, Xinbi Pay, has handled an additional $6 billion. The bulk of that was conducted in Tether (USDT) on the TRON blockchain. The United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Xinbi in March 2026.

Xinbi Turns to USDD After the Freeze

Prosecutors seized two Xinbi payment wallets containing approximately $12 million and took action against 47 more, according to the Justice Department, which acknowledged Tether for its assistance.

“After scamming money from hardworking Americans, criminals operating overseas laundered it through the Xinbi Guarantee network, which operated under the false assumption that they were out of the reach of U.S. law enforcement,” Tara McLeese, Special Agent of the US Secret Service, said.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Xinbi as a significant transnational criminal organization on the same day. It also separately designated two entities that supported the marketplace.

Prosecutors additionally announced a deployment in Madagascar, where authorities dismantled 13 Chinese-run compounds and arrested close to 400 people. Strike Force agents spent two weeks assisting and processed more than 3,200 devices.

Xinbi condemned what it described as arbitrary freezing and pledged to compensate customers. It then swapped approximately $2.8 million of leftover USDT into Decentralized USD (USDD), a stablecoin that has no issuer freeze function.

That escape route has restrictions, as Elliptic notes USDD is partially backed by freezable USDT. Guarantee marketplaces depend on trust, and merchants now understand their deposits can disappear without notice.